At eight years old, Nancy Brashear wrote her first poem.
She wrote about sitting in the fog with magical creatures swirling around her. Most recently, The Wild Rose Press published her psychological thriller, Gunnysack Hell. It’s set in the 1962 Mojave Desert in a homestead cabin. She indie-published Ready or Not, A Creepy Retold Fairytale for Grownups and Flashes from the Rock (a Gunnysack Hell prequel short story). She won first place for her poem “Time and Time Again: The Mermaid’s Rite of Passage” in the 2020 Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens First Annual Poetry Contest. She enjoys “Zooming” as part of author readings at a local Orange County library. And she’s had fun as a visiting author for book groups that adopted Gunnysack Hell.
She holds a Ph.D. in Education from the Claremont Graduate University in literacy development. She served as former chair of Teacher Education for twelve years. Then, she was an English professor for the next eleven years specializing in literature for children and adolescents. She’s presented workshops on children’s literature, teaching, and literacy internationally from Costa Rica to England to New Zealand. She’s written articles and chapters for academic books, reviews for children’s and adolescent literature (The International Literacy Association website), and content for educational publishers. She also taught leadership courses in Zimbabwe and Kazakhstan. As Professor Emeritus, she occasionally teaches an online course for APU and mentors students.
Nancy met her husband when they were in the eighth grade together. They are the proud grandparents of seven talented girls—some of whom are already budding authors. They range in age from five to thirteen. Although life often has its challenges, her life is guided by the wisdom found in 1 Corinthians. “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love” (13:13, NLT).
